family

A devastating fire in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, on Nov. 28, 2016, claimed 14 lives, injured almost 200 and damaged or destroyed close to 2,500 homes, businesses and other structures. A year later, victims look back with gratitude and forward with hope.more

My wife, Lori, and I have always loved camping. From the time we met as students at Appalachian State University in Boone, North Carolina, we have been known to just throw our camping stuff in a vehicle or on our back and take to the woods.more

Tucked into the North Georgia hillside are dozens of fairy houses, sized for the smallest, daintiest fairies to the tallest, proudest dwarves. Dubbed Whimsical Fairy Gardens, the spellbinding estates live up to the name.more

Lilly was not a white-gloved lady. “An independent woman with no means” more aptly describes my grandmother. She entered the world in 1890, the same year the National Women Suffrage Association and the Women Suffrage Association merged.more

Joe Deal was just a 20-something year old young man when he pitched the idea of a corn maze to his dad, a seasoned 30-year tobacco farmer who quit growing tobacco after the federal government deregulated its price in 2004-2005.more

The architecture and the ambiance still reflect the days when eating establishments had to classify themselves as private clubs in order to sell liquor. The name is a link to the building’s former life, as a gasoline station.more

When I first moved to the Smokies, my wife and went hiking nearly every weekend. With only one infant child in tow, we would look forward to these all-day adventures, 8- or 9-hour treks to balds or waterfalls or secluded mountaintops.more

My parents live in the same blue house in Iowa where they’ve lived nearly all of their 43 years of marriage. Though more than a decade has passed since I moved out, I know that house like the back of my hand.more

As a new bride on my grandfather’s family farm, my grandmother taught herself how to make pie crust in secret, feeding her failed attempts to the hogs. As my mom tells it, eventually she emerged victorious with a husband-worthy crust.more

A few miles east of Gatlinburg, a right turn off the main road leads directly into the solitude and beauty of Greenbrier Cove. The road is rough and narrow, its edge precariously close to the river, which tumbles over and around huge boulders.more

I have joked that if my journalism got someone in the region angry enough to spit, a DNA swab could prove beyond any doubt that we were cousins. That's the way it is when you count eight generations tying you to these mountains.more